As regards the English version, which is by M. Gustave Masson, it may be up to the intellectual requirements of the Harrow schoolboys, but it will hardly satisfy those who consider that accuracy, lucidity and ease are essential to a good translation.  Its carelessness is absolutely astounding, and it is difficult to understand how a publisher like Mr. Routledge could have allowed such a piece of work to issue from his press.  ‘Il descend avec le sourire d’un Machiavel’ appears as ’he descends into the smile of a Machiavelli’; George Sand’s remark to Flaubert about literary style, ’tu la consideres comme un but, elle n’est qu’un effet’ is translated ’you consider it an end, it is merely an effort’; and such a simple phrase as ’ainsi le veut Festhe’tique du roman’ is converted into ‘so the aesthetes of the world would have it.’  ‘Il faudra relacher mes Economies’ is ’I will have to draw upon my savings,’ not ‘my economies will assuredly be relaxed’; ’cassures resineuses’ is not ‘cleavages full of rosin,’ and ’Mme. Sand ne reussit que deux fois’ is hardly ‘Madame Sand was not twice successful.’  ‘Querelles d’ecole’ does not mean ‘school disputations’; ’ceux qui se font une sorte d’esthetique de l’indifference absolue’ is not ’those of which the aesthetics seem to be an absolute indifference’; ‘chimere’ should not be translated ‘chimera,’ nor ‘lettres ineditees’ ’inedited letters’; ‘ridicules’ means absurdities, not ‘ridicules,’ and ’qui pourra definir sa pensee?’ is not ‘who can clearly despise her thought?’ M. Masson comes to grief over even such a simple sentence as ’elle s’etonna des fureurs qui accueillirent ce livre, ne comprenant pas que l’on haisse un auteur a travers son oeuvre,’ which he translates ’she was surprised at the storm which greeted this book, not understanding that the author is hated through his work.’  Then, passing over such phrases as ‘substituted by religion’ instead of ‘replaced by religion,’ and ‘vulgarisation’ where ‘popularisation’ is meant, we come to that most irritating form of translation, the literal word-for-word style.  The stream ‘excites itself by the declivity which it obeys’ is one of M. Masson’s finest achievements in this genre, and it is an admirable instance of the influence of schoolboys on their masters.  However, it would be tedious to make a complete ‘catalogue of slips,’ so we will content ourselves by saying that M. Masson’s translation is not merely quite unworthy of himself, but is also quite undeserved by the public.  Nowadays, the public has its feelings.

George Sand.  By the late Elme Marie Caro.  Translated by Gustave Masson, B.A., Assistant Master, Harrow School.  ‘Great French Writers’ Series.  (Routledge and Sons.)

THE POETS’ CORNER—­VII

(Pall Mall Gazette, October 24, 1888.)